1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a module of an electronic timepiece.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic timepiece including a digital display portion is constituted generally by containing a timepiece module including a liquid crystal panel constituting a display element and a main board in a case. The main board is constituted by mounting an electronic part of IC or the like to a printed circuit board, and is provided with various functions of a time display function for displaying current time in digital at the liquid crystal panel based on an oscillation frequency of a quartz oscillator, an alarm function of generating an alarm based on alarm setting and the like. The printed circuit board is arranged with a contact portion, and an outer peripheral portion of the timepiece case is arranged with an operating portion including an operating button and a button shaft. The contact portion and the operating portion constitute a switch mechanism.
The operating portion is provided with an operating spring, and the operating spring functions to separate a front end of the button shaft from the contact portion. The contact portion is a normal off contact, and a switching mechanism is a normal off switch. Hence, in setting time or setting alarm or the like, a user pushes the operating button against the operating spring. Then, the front end of the button shaft pushes the contact portion to switch the contact portion to an on state. In this way, the user carries out a predetermined input by pertinently operating the operating button while looking at a set screen displayed on the display panel.
As described in JP-A-2005-214795 (Patent Reference 1), an electronic timepiece of a background art including a digital display portion needs a thickness for forming a guide hole for sliding to guide the button shaft of the operating portion at an outer peripheral portion of a case other than a thickness for forming a button containing recess portion. That is, the button containing recess portion for containing the operating button of the operating portion is formed at an outer peripheral face of the case, at the same time, a through hole constituting the guide hole is formed between a bottom face of the button containing recess portion and an inner peripheral face of the timepiece case. Therefore, although a thickness of an outer peripheral portion of the case arranged with the operating portion, that is, an interval between the outer peripheral face and the inner peripheral face thereof is more or less shorter than a sum of a length of a button shaft and a height of the operating button, the interval constitutes a considerable thickness in comparison with that of a case of a general electronic apparatus. Further, according to the electronic timepiece of the background art including the digital display portion, the contact portion is arranged at a vicinity of an outer peripheral portion of a display area, and therefore, a space for arranging the contact portion is needed between the outer peripheral portion of the case and the vicinity of the outer peripheral portion of the display area.
According to the electronic timepiece of the background art including the digital display portion, although a size of the case needs to be reduced in order to downsize a product, since the guide hole for sliding to guide the button shaft of the operating button needs to be formed, the thickness of the outer peripheral portion of the case cannot be thinned. Therefore, according to the electronic timepiece of the background art including the digital display portion, downsizing a product is necessarily accompanied by downsizing the display area. Further, when downsizing the display area reduces a product value, the product cannot be downsized.
It is a problem of the invention to be resolved to provide a portable electronic timepiece capable of downsizing a product without reducing a display area.